After I Fall: A FALLING NOVEL

by Jessica Scott

  “It’s a gift.”

  I scrape a piece of cheese off the plate. "You know, despite all this, I can't wrap my brain around the accusations in that thing."

  Kelsey taps one red-tipped nail on the table. "You know the official report says Eli was investigated and cleared of any wrongdoing, right? His men shot some prisoners. He sent up the report as soon as he suspected something wasn't right."

  I shake my head. “If he did the right thing, why does the article make him look like a monster instead of a hero? How can it twist the facts so much?"

  "Because it's all about drawing inferences and letting people make their own conclusions. Propaganda 101." She takes another pull off the beer. "Most people don't read beyond the headlines. Congressman’s fiancée tied to war criminal. Pretty hard to get beyond that, even if you do read the whole article." She points the beer at me. "Case in point. You know who General McChrystal is?"

  "He's the guy who got fired in Afghanistan, right?"

  "I'm actively impressed that you knew anything about him, but your answer is exactly what I'm talking about. He wasn't fired; he resigned. And he resigned because of things his men were saying, not things he actually said or did. But all everyone remembers is 'he's the guy who got fired’."

  "Then it doesn't matter what we do. Davis wants me back. He’s given me a day to say my goodbyes. If I don’t, Eli is going to be dragged through the mud, all because I worked here." I lower my head to my forearms. "Fuck me."

  "I’m pretty sure that's what got you into this mess." I lift my head and glare at her. "What, too soon?"

  I smile because I can't help it. And I might cry if I don't. "Definitely too soon."

  I drum my nails on the barrel of my beer bottle. Turning the label around, I inspect the logo, the colors. "Not your father's stout." I frown, reading it again.

  "What are you thinking?"

  "The marketing. Not your father's stout. This beer is positioning itself against something old but something that matters to people. Their fathers and their fathers’ stouts."

  "So? Eli isn't a beer." She pushes away from the table. "Talking about beer isn't going to fucking fix this, Parker."

  I shove aside the hurt. I'll deal with that later. "We need to wake Eli up. I've got an idea."

  Eli groans and sits up. "I'm not interested in your ideas." He sits up like he's moving through water and his body’s weighted down.

  "Too bad. You're going to hear them."

  Kelsey's face blanches white and she skirts away from the table and closer to the door. "I'll just let you two get this out of your system." She mouths what looks like good luck and slides her index finger into a loop made by her other index finger and thumb. I’m pretty sure we’re not even close to makeup sex yet.

  If we ever will be.

  It’s hard to be irritated with her for abandoning me. I don't know what Kelsey did in her past life, but right then I am utterly grateful for whatever powers that be that have put her in my life as a friend.

  I just hope that will continue after this.

  "I was willing to listen a few days ago. Now, I'm getting ready to put my liver through a hazing event, if you don't mind."

  "Yeah, I do mind." I sit on the table in front of him, physically blocking him from the whiskey bottle behind me.

  There is fury in his eyes. "This isn't a fucking game, Parker." His low words are laced with anger and hurt. I should be afraid but I’m not. I know he won’t hurt me. He would never hurt me.

  Which is why I’m not afraid to go toe to toe with him.

  "You know what? You're right. It's not a fucking game and screw you for thinking I would trivialize this." The hurt is a physical thing, clawing at my skin, slicing at me until I am raw and wounded but I won’t step away. I won’t retreat.

  He shakes his head, reaching around me for the whiskey bottle. He looks up at me. If we weren't in the middle of a shitshow, it would be so easy to slide my fingers through his hair. To slip into his lap and open for him and lose myself in his touch.

  It would be easier if he would just lash out. But this quiet disapproval is the worst kind of suffering.

  He shakes his head, letting the bottle dangle between his index finger and thumb. "You sit there and you judge me the entire time you're trying to convince me otherwise. You've never had to make the decisions I made. The choices. The fucking regret. The hardest thing you'll ever do is decide whether to break away from Daddy’s money and live your own fucking life. I did that already. Got the motherfucking t-shirt. I walked away from everything because of that day. And I never looked back."

  Somehow, the conversation has twisted to me. I did not see that coming but in an instant, I'm on the defensive. "You think it’s so easy for me to walk away from my entire life?"

  "As opposed to letting a man you don't love fuck you and hurt you and treat you like you’re his own personal Barbie doll? Yeah, I fucking do."

  "It's so goddamned easy for you, isn't it? With your moral clarity?"

  "When you have to make life-and-death decisions, come talk to me about moral clarity."

  I refuse to let him box me out. "You don't get to make this about me. This is one hundred percent not about me."

  "Oh really? Your name linked to an alleged war criminal isn't about you? Spare me, princess."

  "Don't call me that."

  "Why? You are. You're just some spoiled business school pedigree sorority girl slumming before she settles down to something respectable. I know all about your type."

  "You don't know anything about me. Or the decisions I made just to survive." My eyes are burning, the air locked in my lungs, refusing to release.

  "Then why the fuck are you so furious about a hit piece filled with lies?"

  "Because it says you're a fucking war criminal! And even though I've got a pretty good imagination, I can't really match the you standing in front of me with the you I read about in that article."

  "That's because that article wants you and the rest of the country to think exactly that." He lifts the bottle of whiskey to his lips. He takes another drink. "The investigation cleared me of all wrongdoing, but I didn't know what was going on in my unit, either." His words are quiet now, laced with regret and recrimination. "A commander is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do." His slurred words are muffled and bitter. "I failed in my most basic responsibility as an officer. My commander protected me. It made me sick to think that he would protect me, allow me to advance, when I hadn't known what was going on in my own formation." He sighs heavily and pushes up off the couch. "So I resigned. As soon as we got back to the States, I resigned my commission. I took off my West Point ring, and I walked away from everything. I couldn't do it anymore. They protected me knowing I'd screwed up."

  Finally, he looks me in the eye. The bitterness in his gaze is darker than the deepest abyss. "I am the man in that article. I'm the commander who didn't lead his men. I'm the commander who didn't see what was going on around me until it was too late."

  I rise and move toward him.

  He stops me. "Don't." That single word might as well be a physical barrier.

  I take another step closer. "You don't get to call the shots here." I stop right in front of him. Slip the bottle from his hands and thread my fingers with his. "You told me once to take the leap. To trust you." I lift my mouth to his, brushing my lips across his. "I can fix this. I can help you."

  He turns away from me, stumbling toward his small bedroom. "I don't want your help."

  I let him go. Allowing him space.

  I leave his apartment, letting the door close quietly behind me. “Too bad,” I say to the closed door.

  Chapter 29

  Eli

  * * *

  Six hours later, I stumble down to my office. There's a quiet rap on my office door. I look up, hoping to see Parker standing there in her yoga pants and a sweater.

  But instead it's Deacon. "Try not to look so disappointed that it's me," he mumbles. "
You know you could try calling her. There's this amazing thing called modern technology. Fascinating stuff."

  I can feel the enamel in my teeth chip from grinding my teeth so hard.

  Thankfully, he lets it go. "There's a reporter here to see you. Ryan Pool? Says he spoke to your publicist and set up an interview." Deacon leans against the doorframe. "When did you hire a publicist?"

  "I don’t have one. Tell him to fuck off."

  "Can't do that. Turns out, he was a public affairs officer in his former life and he's here to help you unfuck the shitshow PR disaster your company command has become."

  "You know, in the real world, everybody and their fucking brother isn't a soldier or a former soldier."

  "Yeah well, in our world, we live an hour and a half from Fort Bragg. I would expect we'd have more than our share of soldiers floating around." He frowns. "Do you really want me to wax intellectual about why there are so many soldiers gravitating to the space you've created here?"

  "Not really." I try to give him the hint that I need him to leave but, typical Deacon, he's decided to be a pain in the ass.

  Again.

  "Ryan Pool is not the antichrist," he says quietly. "Maybe he's worth talking to."

  "Never say never."

  "Yeah, well, I just spent an hour drinking with him and he seems like a pretty straightforward guy." He swears softly. "You know, you don't have to be a belligerent asshole about everything. Fucking let someone else make a goddamned decision.” He glares at me then. “Talk. To the fucking. Reporter."

  I slam the lid down on my laptop and instantly regret it. I hope I haven't managed to crack the glass. "Now isn't the time, Deac."

  "Now is absolutely the fucking time. You're holed up in here like some kind of hobbit, mourning the loss of his one twue wuv."

  I glance at him sideways. "Did you just make a Princess Bride reference?"

  "Maybe. Go talk to the fucking guy."

  "I hate reporters."

  "Don't care. Tell your story or someone else will. You've let fear of this article trap you. You need to get this shit stopped, time now."

  In his former life, Deacon was an NCO. I never could see it before, but in that moment, with him barking an order at me and pointing toward my bar, I can finally see the fierce sergeant he must have been once upon a time.

  I say nothing, walk into my bar. The reporter is sitting in one of the small booths, typing away at a laptop that looks like it's several replacement cycles past its prime.

  He does not look like the antichrist. Or maybe he is. He's smooth, standing and offering his hand. "Thanks for finally agreeing to meet with me."

  I swallow and sit, ignoring the proffered hand. I feel dirty sitting at a table in the bar that I built. It's empty now except for us and Deacon, who is behind the bar ostensibly working on the prep for tonight's opening but in reality just watching my back.

  "I'm not sure what questions I can answer that you don't already know," I say quietly.

  He drops his hand and looks a little put out. He recovers quickly, though, and continues typing on his laptop. "I learned about your case in grad school. It's easy to understand why your men did what they did. But I wanted to know what it meant for you. For the man who was supposed to lead them. How you sleep at night?"

  I smile flatly. "I run a bar. Sleeping isn't really my primary concern."

  "Yeah, I can see that." He jots something down on his notepad. "I want to run this as a human-interest story. My editor is really interested in seeing more pieces about this sort of thing."

  "You have an editor who is willing to pay for human-interest stories? What, are you funded by a secret billionaire benefactor?"

  Pool grins. "I don't ask those kinds of questions."

  "No, you just ask people to bare their souls."

  "The best of us do.”

  "For what?" I swallow a hard knot in my throat. "For what?"

  "We need stories." He hesitates for a long moment. "Because they're what makes us human."

  His words take a moment to penetrate, settling over me like a warm blanket. "You were in Iraq."

  "Army. I served in Mosul in 2009 as a lieutenant with 3rd Brigade, First Cav."

  I smile then. "I was part of 5th Brigade. Death Dealers." Each brigade in the Cav has a mascot. First Brigade was Ironhorse. Second was Blackjack. Third was Greywolf. My brigade was the Death Dealers, my company, the Wolfpack. The sense of belonging is almost instantaneous. "We chewed a lot of the same dirt at Hood."

  "We did." He closes his laptop lid. "Look, I'm not here to ask you the whys or the whats. I want my readers to understand what it's like to command men who have done terrible things at war."

  I look up at him. Trying to keep the frustration from leaking back in. "Everything we do at war is a terrible thing. Every house we destroy. Every dog we kill. Every child whose father we imprison. There is nothing good about war."

  "And yet, I'm willing to bet you'd trade it all to go back. Just for one day."

  I shake my head. "I have everything I need here." Except one thing.

  "It's not the same, you know that. You know it's different downrange."

  "It is. And yeah, I miss some of the stupid stuff. But I've…I've got the bar. And the gang who hang out and work here."

  "Is it enough?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, man, it is. What I do here matters."

  He looks at me then. "You're a West Pointer, aren't you?"

  "I was."

  "You don't sound proud of that. You weren't like every other cadet at West Point? Eager to go? Eager to prove yourself? To test yourself in battle?"

  I look down at my hands. At my empty ring finger where my class ring used to be. It hasn't been there in more than half a decade. "I took my class ring off the day I decided I was no longer a soldier." I chew on my bottom lip for a moment. Selecting my words carefully. "I wanted to be like the men I was raised to believe in. Heroes who were honest and loyal and true." I look up at him. "I still believe that real leaders are those things. But when I wasn't punished for what my men did, I felt…dirty. Like I was being given a pass for not doing my job."

  "But if you didn't know, why should you be held responsible for what they did?" His question is carefully measured.

  "Because I was raised to believe that leaders are responsible for everything their soldiers do, or fail to do. I was basically absolved of that responsibility. To keep me in the fight."

  "And you feel this was unfair?"

  I nod. "I know it doesn't make sense. No one wants to be punished. But I wanted to be held to the same standard. I needed to believe in what we said was the right way to live."

  "So you're an idealist?"

  "I was. I'm not anymore."

  "What are you now?"

  "A cynic. Maybe. A pragmatist. I'm not sure."

  "Maybe you're just looking for something to believe in. Maybe we all are." He slides his laptop toward me.

  It’s open to an article on the New York Times At War Blog:

  More to the Story: Beyond the Dangerous Veteran Stereotype

  By Parker Hauser.

  I say nothing, my throat blocked.

  And I start to read.

  * * *

  Parker

  * * *

  I've mostly picked myself up. And by that, I mean I've showered and gotten food and withdrawn my application for the executive management program.

  I haven't actually opened my laptop and done the formal paperwork yet, but I’ve notified Professor Blake that I will not be applying for the executive management program. But hey, ideas are the first step to action, right?

  I'm meeting Davis for lunch. In a public place, which is good because that means there will be no scenes.

  He’s not exactly happy about my op-ed in the New York Times. Add in the article that Ryan Pool sent to the AP that managed to get ahead of Davis’s article.

  I’ve out maneuvered him. He’s going to be less than pleased.

  Which is also part o
f the reason I've gone silent on all communications. I turned off all my social media notifications and considered deleting all of it. Ignored calls from media outlets, wanting to know more about the personal side of Eli. A TV tabloid offered me fifty thousand dollars for an exclusive tell all.

  But the best part about the whole scenario is that Ryan’s piece makes Davis look fantastic. Like the up-and-coming congressman is going to be actively involved in working on issues at Veterans Affairs. That he’s fully supporting his fiancée’s desire to be more involved in Veterans’ issues, too.

  He’s going to be so pissed he lost control of the narrative.

  Today, he’s going to lose any control he had left.

  I walk into the restaurant precisely on time. I'm never early. Never late. I know my role here, and I will play it well.

  Because this is the last time.

  I’m not sure how I'll manage but I'm going to figure it out. I may have lost everything that mattered to me, but in the brief time that Eli and The Pint were part of my life, I had a taste of something I'd forgotten existed: possibility.

  Davis looks up when I walk in. He stands, offers me a cold kiss on my cheek.

  I'm finally pissed but I smile pleasantly. I’m pissed that my so-called fiancé was going to ruin a good man’s life just to get back at me. Pissed that my father has gone silent again, once he figured out that Davis and I were most likely permanently ending things.

  Pissed at everything and everyone who is supposed to matter in my life that turned their back on me and walked away. Again.

  "You think you’re so smart, don’t you?"

  "Hello to you, too," I say, a pleasant smile pasted on my face.

  His eyes flash but in the soft restaurant lighting, you'd have to be paying attention to catch it.

  I'm paying attention.

  "Now is not the time to get lippy."

  "When is a good time?" I ask sweetly, still smiling. Remember to play the part. Play by his rules.

  He waits until I lift the water glass to my lips. “Are you proud of your little op-ed? Does it ease your guilt for fucking around on me?”